himself, who writes: “Where secrecy is known to exist, one can never be absolutely sure that he knows the complete truth” (Condon & Gillmor, 1968, p. 522).

This remark of Condon’s was made in relation to the proposition that some agency of the Government-either within the Air Force, the Central Intelligence Agency, or elsewhere-knows all about UFOs and is keeping the knowledge secret. . . . We decided not to pay special attention to [this hypothesis], but instead to keep alert to any indications that might lead to any evidence that not all of the essential facts known to the government were being given to us. . . . We found no such evidence.”

The above statement, that the Colorado Project found no evidence that the government might be withholding information about the UFO problem, should be compared with the account of Case 30 (Condon & Gillmor, 1968, pp. 341, 342). The abstract of this case reads: “A civilian employee at an AFB confirmed an earlier report that base personnel had made an UFO sighting, although official sources denied that such an event had occurred.” The background reads: “A rumor was relayed to this project by a source considered to be reliable, reporting in the fall, 1967, six UFOs had followed an X-15 flight at the AFB. It was suggested that motion pictures of the event should be available from the Air Force.” There follows an account of the investigation that includes the following remarks: “The rumor persisted, however, with indications that official secrecy was associated with the event. If reports of the event had been classified, no record would appear on the operations log. . .A responsible base employee . . . had reassured our source that there was a sighting by pilots and control tower operators. . . . His replacement . . . is quoted as saying that there apparently was something to it because ‘they are not just flatly denying it.’ ” Attempts to learn more about the reported event from the PIO [Public Information Officer] were met with apparent evasion from that office. [The PIO was never available for telephone conversation and never returned telephone calls, even when a Pentagon officer transmitted a request to the base Director of Information that he telephone the Project Investigator and clarify this situation.] “(The source) was contacted later . . . and asked for clarification of the incident. He responded only that the Director of Information had told him to ‘stay out of that.’ ” The conclusion of this case reads as follows: “Although it is true that the report of this incident was never more than a rumor, it is also true that project investigators were not able to satisfactorily confirm or deny that an UFO incident had occurred. Attempts to investigate the rumor were met with evasion and uncooperative responses to our inquiries by base information.”

If Condon was familiar with the details of this case, as he certainly should have been, it is hard to understand that he would state without qualification or comment that “We were assured that the federal government would withhold no information on the subject. . .” (Condon & Gillmor, 1968, p. 8).

In the late 1970s, the Freedom of Information Act made it possible to request from federal agencies information that had been classified. On learning